Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Occupy UC Davis Protester Expelled [Updated]

[Update from the comments, posted on 4/22 at 9:15am]: "on Thursday, 40 pissed-off people walked into the Dean's front office and sat and made their case until the Assistant Dean agreed to a meeting with Thomas for the following day, with his lawyer present. The following day, Thomas was reinstated at the university — this despite the rather instant dismissal and refusal to consider an appeal just a couple days before.

The Dean assures us this has nothing to do with the direct action. No, nothing at all."

An update and call from our comrades at the Davis Antirepression Crew for a Solidarity Study-In at the Dean's Office.

A UC Davis undergraduate in art studio was arrested early Saturday morning, 17 March, in his dorm room, by members of both the UC Davis and City of Davis Police. He was charged with Felony Vandalism and held in jail over the weekend and into finals week; his school supplies, phone and computer were all confiscated. With no access to his contacts nor warning of the arrest, he was unable to contact legal representation. Incommunicado in jail, he was unable to take final exams, and was only bailed out (for $20,000) when concerned friends began looking for him after he had been missing for days. UC Davis Student Judicial Affairs, which initiated the warrant for his arrest, didn’t bother to notify his home department, his family, friends, or professors to let them know the student’s whereabouts.

Several weeks later, both Student Judicial Affairs and Student Housing threatened him with disciplinary measures including eviction and expulsion, in addition to the criminal charges they initiated through Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig. The student, who entered UCD as a transfer student last fall, has since been expelled based on poor academic performance, on top of criminal charges that may carry a 3-4 year sentence and $10,000 fine. As a student prominently involved with Occupy UC Davis, arrested during the pepper spray incident on Nov. 18, 2011, these charges appear to be a means to intimidate and punish him for political activism.

The charges against this student-activist are in line with the ongoing and systematic police and legal repression of the Occupy movement. Threatening people with inflated or trumped-up charges, a familiar tactic in many vulnerable communities, is now increasingly wielded as a strategy to chill political dissent on campuses — a way of exacting punishment in jail time, legal expenses, and interference with other obligations before the opportunity for trial. “This is the new de facto regime of guilty until proven innocent, and it should be opposed by every decent person,” said Joshua Clover, a professor at Davis. The university News Service, which reports directly to Chancellor Katehi, has already expressed its enthusiasm for engaging “law enforcement to prosecute proven violations” — seeming to misunderstand the legal relation of trials, proof, and guilt almost entirely, with harmful consequences for students.

The Reynoso Task Force Report on the UCD Pepper Spray Incident just last week verified that the administration’s unfounded hysteria regarding the Occupy movement resulted in their extralegal use of force against student activists. Importantly, the Reynoso Report also underscored the need for campus authorities to handle student political protest through already established, appropriate channels; namely through the SJA and Student Affairs — and not by means of police and criminal charges.

We urge the UCD campus community and the general public to reject categorically the administration’s use of legal maneuvering to suppress political dissent.

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Bring a cushion, 5,000 friends, your favorite textbook, and a colorful sign to the Office of Letters and Sciences! We're going to meet at the building's ground level entrance. If you can't attend this event, support Tomas at his arraignment this Friday.

15 comments:

Felony vandalism: if the UC claims it cost more than $400 to clean up, then it'll be somebody's curtain call, won't it?

This is particularly galling in light of the Kroll and Reynoso reports: if people don't now grasp that the greatest danger on campus is the administration, they never will come to understand it.

Of course admitting the obvious - the moral bankruptcy and utter illegitimacy of the powers that be - is terrifying. That's why our society is afflicted with such willful ignorance, and each citizen-ostrich is guilty by silent complicity.

If he/she is not joking, then here's a bit of rationality to prove him/her wrong.

Yes vandalism is illegal and some forms of vandalism are very inappropriate. However, vandalism is also used as a form of political protest; a way of getting out messages that are otherwise suppressed. This young man here may or may not be vandalizing for said causes. However, due to his involvement in Occupy UCD I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Secondly, yes CA is broke, however to blame that fact on the actions of the people is entirely ridiculous. People don't "force" a police presence, that's simply the state/county's response to things like political protests and shantytowns. Shantytowns, especially the ones correlated to Occupy movements are very capable of self-governing, or of anarchy (and I don't mean the neandrathalic burn/pillage/rape anarchy, educate yourself on the term if you don't know its real meaning). These places do not require, ask for, or want police presence, it's forced on them by the guys upstairs.

I really hope you wake up and see the problems you complain about come from the top and trickle down. It's not the other way around.

"you should expect your opponent to take you seriously and act against you." perhaps, but that means they can do so illegally? a double standard at least, and a dangerous one- you are ok with the administration breaking the law and enact violence on its own students (and pretend to call them non-affiliates!), but if a student does nonviolent civil disobedience for a noble cause, they are the villain?

and yah you need to research the CA budget crisis a lot more if you think that students standing up for their education is what is causing the crisis. and if it is students forcing the police response, then why did the investigation come up so damning against the administration and police?

finally, are you aware that UCPD officers make an obscene amount of $$? didn't i read that officer pike makes $175,000 per year? that is more than many/most professors! and that his punishment for brutalizing nonviolent students was leave with pay? these are CHOICES the admin made, not something anyone forced them to do. UC policies are increasingly in DIRECT opposition to the CA Master Plan for Education, which is a LAW, so you might want to recheck your ideas about what makes a law abiding citizen. if there is such a budget crisis, why don't university administrators respond as they should to protest against university policies-- BY MEETING WITH STUDENTS AS THEY HAVE REQUESTED AGAIN AND AGAIN. people turn to protest when authorities and ignore them and violate their rights. if you are going to claim that protest is forcing university response, i can argue just as fairly that the university forced protest by refusing to even MEET with, let alone resolve, student/campus worker/faculty objections.

The Sacramento Bee State Worker salary page reports Lt. Pike made $110,000 in 2010 and $$108,000 in 2009. Not even Chief Spicuzza made $175,000 per year. Don't students know how to do research, or do they just make stuff up and then believe it?

There is a growing sentiment to privatize the UC system to save the CSUs. Your blockade (which intruded upon the rights of customers to conduct lawful business free of interference) and building takeovers just feeds this. A Stanford U think tank issued a study yesterday pushing the idea. As you might have heard the Republicans feel many people don't need a college education and that public higher education as we have known it should be ended. Mindless protests don't help.

So here's an update: on Thursday, 40 pissed-off people walked into the Dean's fornt office and sat and made their case until the Assistant Dean agreed to a meeting with Thomas for the following day, with his lawyer present. The following day, Thomas was reinstated at the university — this despite the rather instant dismissal and refusal to consider an appeal just a couple days before.

The Dean assures us this has nothing to do with the direct action. No, nothing at all.

Reclaim UC has once again slanted the story to make it look like they are so oppressed.Davis police had nothing to do with Tomas' arrest; it was UC Davis police.The police don't usually warn you when you are about to be arrested.Student Judicial Affairs is not a law enforcement organization; they cannot issue arrest warrants. Only the police and DA can request arrest warrants.UC Davis police gave Tomas his attorney's phone number before he went to jail.Political activism and graffiti vandalism are two different things. You have no right to damage public property; it belongs to everybody in this state. Are you so foolish to think that the cost to repair the graffiti damage won't come out of another program's budget or be paid for indirectly by tuition?

"Are you so foolish to think that the cost to repair the graffiti damage won't come out of another program's budget or be paid for indirectly by tuition?"

Well, I myself do think that — but not foolishly. Unlike you, I actually know what I am talking about. Davis has a "graffiti abatement team" that works for...free! They're frickin' volunteers. And you're a nitwit.

So in other words, this person is being rewarded for bad behavior. Students that have truly tried to keep their GPA up, but failed to do so, have been dismissed, but this person get's a literal "get out of jail" pass, and he can resume studies. Right now, I am less concern with police brutality, and more concern with the arbitrary nature of dismissals.